


copper and silver

by sunbrights



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:13:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 8,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22141606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunbrights/pseuds/sunbrights
Summary: Magic is only the beginning.(A collection of drabbles and short fics originally posted on Tumblr. Tags updated as chapters are posted.)
Relationships: Arielle/Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh, Fen & Eliot Waugh, Fen & Fray & Eliot Waugh, Margo Hanson & Eliot Waugh, Quentin Coldwater & Alice Quinn, Quentin Coldwater & Julia Wicker, Quentin Coldwater & Margo Hanson, Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh, William "Penny" Adiyodi & Quentin Coldwater
Comments: 29
Kudos: 30





	1. controlled cooling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for Inktober prompt #1, "ring".

She almost cries, after. But she doesn’t.

She sniffles, once, _maybe._ But that’s all. She’s proud of herself for that; she sees the heat-bright curl of her emotions coming, and quenches it instead of grabbing for it. 

It isn’t him. It isn’t— that. ( _That_ is definitely not the problem here. Definitely not. Wow.) It’s just… all of it. The weight of it, hitting all at the same time. She’s been waiting her entire life for her life to change, and now it’s here, changed, and it’s... a lot. That’s all. 

She doesn’t cry. But it does take a minute. 

He doesn’t draw attention to it. He lies next to her, not touching her but also not turning away from her, while she pulls herself together. Maybe on the surface it might seem cruel or detached, but she doesn’t feel ignored. She feels steady, without being pushed or pulled. 

He’s… like that, she thinks. Gentle. But in a quiet, inconspicuous sort of way— the way the rest of him most definitely is _not._

He’s not at all what she expected, when she imagined her husband, the Child of Earth. 

When she’s ready, she rolls back over. He’s on his back beside her, one arm raised over his head so that he can inspect his wedding ring. His expression is difficult to read, and an uncertain flutter rises in her chest (he hadn’t been very… _connected_ with her, while they were— but it was only really noticeable at the end, when he— but that’s understandable, of course it is), but he doesn’t look upset, or frustrated, or disappointed. He looks… pensive, and something else. 

“It was my grandfather’s,” she says into the silence. 

He’s not so lost in his thoughts that she startles him. He only hums, and reaches up with his other hand to twist the ring around his finger. “Like a memento,” he decides, but something in his voice is thin. “That’s nice.” 

“You don’t have to do that.” His eyes flick over to her, enough of a question on its own. She draws the blanket further up her chest. “Be polite,” she answers. “For my sake.” 

He smiles. It’s brief and sad, like all the others she's seen. “I mean,” he says, “I’d argue that I at least owe you some basic decency.” 

She shrugs. “My grandfather didn’t leave that ring to my father, or to me,” she tells him. “He left it to you. That’s how fixated he was on making sure our family was— lifted up.” 

He lets his hands tumble back to the bed. “Is it fucked up,” he says slowly, “that I’m not super clear yet on how that’s supposed to work? Like, do I have to… _do_ something? Or...” 

She isn’t sure what that means, for something to be ‘fucked up,’ but it is annoying. A little. It’s not his fault, he didn’t ask for this, tradition demanded it, but it still… It is, a little. 

“I’m granted a seat at court by virtue of being your wife,” she explains. “You’re within your rights as king to dismiss me from that seat, if that’s what you want, but I won’t ever stop being your wife. Any of my children begot by you will be rightful heirs to the throne, no matter what.” 

“ _Begot,_ ” he echoes. He enunciates it slowly, snaps it off between his teeth. “Jesus.” 

She tries not to think about how it feels between her— but she does. It literally just happened, obviously. He’s her husband. She’s his wife. 

Her face warms anyway. “It’s how it’s worded in the law.” 

“Yeah, no. Yeah. I get it.” He turns his head to look at her fully, and there’s something new behind his eyes, sharp and curious. “Nobody’s dismissing you from court, for the record. Least of all me.” 

“Oh,” she says, surprised again. “Okay.” 

“In the meantime,” he flashes the back of his hand at her, her grandfather’s ring a dark band against his skin, “if you want me to get a different ring, I have thoughts.” 

“It doesn’t matter to me,” she says, and means it, she thinks. “It’s not important what my grandfather thought it represented, or what he wanted it to mean, or… anything like that. What matters to me is that it’s— ours.” She touches his hand, her own silver band chiming softly when it comes up against his. “And we get to decide what it means, now.” 

She meets his eyes, and it’s not— it was never going to be a love story. She’s known that for a long time, even if part of her might have hoped— it doesn’t matter. He’s kind, she thinks. He’s good, she hopes. And that’s already so much more than she expected from her life. 

“Yeah,” he says, on an inhale. His chin dips, an unsteady little nod. “Yeah. Okay.”


	2. bullet rosettes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for Inktober prompt #4, "freeze".

_Physical Kids_ , says the note, scribbled in blue ink and taped to the front door, _let yourselves in!_

Somebody was bored. There's a lazy ward on the lock and nothing else, so Margo freezes the handle until it snaps off and kicks the whole fucking thing in.

They called it a cottage, which she guesses it is… but the place is a goddamn ghost town. The whole first floor is practically empty— except for Eliot, the tall kid from her PA class, perched behind a depressing-as-shit-looking bar with three empty glasses and a cocktail shaker.

He turns around when the door hits the opposite wall. He's got a tipsy glaze to him, crisp white sleeves rolled to his elbows, and a lit cigarette hanging loose from his mouth. He smiles when he sees her.

"You made it." He spreads his arms lazily, drunk Vanna White showing off a whole fuckload of nothing. "Tada."

"This place sucks," she tells him from the doorway.

He pinches his cigarette between two fingers and breathes in slow, squinting at the ceiling. "There's potential," he decides, blowing the smoke in a spiral. "I'm considering a coup."

"Get on with it, then. Because this shit is _not_ flying with me." She hoists herself onto one of the ugly little stools and dumps her bag on the bar. He plucks the cocktail shaker out from under the straps with a too-cheerful little roll of his shoulders. "How the fuck are you already drunk?"

He winks, rattling his shaker up by his ear. "My discipline was basically a foregone conclusion," he answers. "Sunderland barely needed to test me." He strains the drink out into a wide-mouthed martini glass and considers it, his head tilted critically. It's dark blue and bubbly. "So I've been here. Experimenting."

"Well." She shimmies her shoulders. "Catch me up, then, asshole."

He thinks he's halfway to whatever it is he's trying to perfect. After the first one, she thinks he's halfway to halfway, and tells him so— and that by itself is enough to keep the drinks coming for the rest of the afternoon.

He tests, she tastes. Repeat until perfection.

"What is it?" she asks eventually, when she's rolling up on tipsy, too. It's pretty basic of her, small talk level shit, but whatever. Who doesn't get curious now and then?

"What's what?"

"Your dick size." He grins at her, salacious and delighted, and _oh_ , that's a conversation for another day. "Your discipline, you cock. What else?"

He palms the shaker and turns away from her. His head rolls back and forth, like he's cracking his neck, and then all the bottles slam off the shelf at once, clattering and clanging together, suspended in midair. They hold there for a moment, and then they start to sort themselves, swapping places in clean, sharp angles: first by the type of liquor, then by the color of the label, then by the name on the bottle. When they're finished, they all slam back into place at once, leaving the shelf looking fuller and neater and deliciously coordinated.

Telekinesis. "Simple," she muses. "Elegant." She leans her temple against her knuckles and watches him move along the shelf. "Yeah, okay. I can see it."

He doesn't really react. He just plucks a nice vermouth from its new spot on top and turns back to the bar. "You?"

She pushes her empty glass at him, demanding. He wraps up mixing the latest version for her (what number are they on? who gives a shit) but this time when he goes to add ice, Margo flaps her hand to cut him off. 

She touches two fingers to the base of the glass while he pours. It seems like the sort of thing that should be hard, modulating temperature the way she wants, but it's not. She chills the glass just enough to be perfect, and adds some frost around the stem for pizzazz, some mist spilling from the mouth for intrigue.

He smiles, first at the drink and then at her, surprised and impressed, so she does the same thing to another glass. For him, so that they can cheers on this one. It's not any harder the second time.

Maybe that's the point of it being a discipline: easy when it should be hard. Whatever. She doesn't fucking know. She hasn't decided where she lands on the whole thing yet.

But it makes a damn good drink.


	3. interlocked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for Inktober prompt #5, "build".

There’s a garden set up in a supply closet at the far end of the safehouse. It’s basic stuff, mostly: anise and sage and a whole slew of different root vegetables. It’s necessary, but not efficient; they’ve got a Naturalist on hand, Chase, who put together all the greenhouse spells, but they have to be constantly monitored and maintained, so that the right plants get sun, water, and heat at the right times and in the right amounts. 

They all _work_ — it’s just that they all work independently, when it makes more sense for them to work together. It seems like exactly the kind of problem magic should have a solution for. But Chase is the live-in expert, and when she asks he insists they don’t have any better way to come at the problem. 

The thing is, though, they _do._ They have all the individual spells. If they had something new to replace them with, tailored to those specific components, it would save them an almost incalculable amount of time and energy. 

( _Almost._ Julia can do the math to back herself up, and she does.) 

It takes her a couple weeks. There’s not a lot of information on horomancy in the safehouse, so she has to get creative with her research. Her first few tries are duds— she expected the horomancy to be fiddly, but _jesus christ_ the meteoromancy is so much worse— but after a couple rounds of revisions, she gets there. 

“What the fuck?” Chase says, when she brings it to him. 

It’s aggressive enough that she dog-ears her place in her book with the edge of her nail. “I wrote a new spell,” she says again. “You can look it over before I set it up, if you want. Make sure all the Nature components are kosher.” 

She knows they are. But she knows Chase’s type, too; he wants to look like he has control even when everyone around him knows he doesn’t. She flips her notebook to the final version of the spell, and he glares at her when he snatches it out of her hands. 

He can’t find any mistakes in it, because there aren’t any, and Marina only laughs, when he tries to rope her into it. 

"If it works, it works," she tells him, already walking away. "Who gives a shit?" 

So Julia gets to set her spell. 

It’s not very flashy; aside from a couple of new, self-contained pockets of sunlight, the room hardly looks any different at all. It's a pretty specific use case, she reminds herself, while she takes herself through the tuts. Probably Brakebills kids don’t have to spare a thought for things like this. Probably Q spent his time this month learning something else, something new and fantastical. 

But it solves a problem, a real problem, and it’s _hers_ — and that’s a thrill all on its own.


	4. branches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for Inktober prompt #8, "frail".

The key does not create a shadow bat. It creates a man, spitting angry and with a strange, drawling quality to his voice. 

_Grandfather,_ she realizes, studying the illusion work and the stricken look it spills across the High King’s face, but— no. He is not her real father, and so this apparition of a spiteful old man is her family even less. 

She says it anyway, because she can, because she’s angry (he lied to her, they _lied_ ), and the brightness of her voice makes the High King flinch, full-bodied. 

He’s afraid. He’s terrified— his whole arm trembling, the tip of the key pointed straight out like a blade— of a man so obviously older and smaller and weaker than him, who isn’t even really there at all. 

Frail human, Fray thinks. It’s an appropriate title, now that she’s seen humans for herself, up close. She pities him, helpless to escape his own fragility. 

He looks at her oddly, after. She feels his eyes following her around the garish, nearly empty cottage the key brings them to, and he doesn’t always look away, when she turns to catch him. They aren’t the same wary, angry looks he’d given her before. They aren’t softer, but they are stranger: thoughtful and dissembling and aggrieved. 

She wonders if that simple illusion was really all it took, to finally convince him of the lie. 

Eventually, he sends them away, to a place called New York. (Which is different, someone tells her insistently, from the place they are already, called Up State New York.) He tells them that he wants them to experience his culture, and that they deserve time to relax after the ordeal they’ve all had. He tells them that he plans to continue searching for a reliable way back to Fillory, while they’re gone. 

He is lying. Again. 

“Nothing to worry about,” he says, when he’s sending them off. “Your—” The phrasing sticks in his throat and dies there, but his wife’s eyes still light up, dreamy and overjoyed. “Fen has her daggers with her, so that’s, y’know. That.” He waves his hand, and the boy hovering behind Fray’s shoulder bobs his head, his smile earnest and eager. It makes her skin crawl. “And Todd will… be there, too, I guess.” 

“You betcha,” the boy agrees. “Got it on lock. Nothing to worry about.” 

“Goodbye, Father,” she says, with the same brightness that hit him like a whipcrack before. 

It works again, though maybe not as effectively the second time. His expression goes tense and tight around his eyes, but he doesn’t look away. 

“Have fun,” he says, and then he adds, “Be safe,” in a strange, stilted voice. He bends to accept a kiss on the cheek from his wife. “I’ll see you soon.” 

Fray folds her arms over her stomach, when it starts to churn. 

The High King of Fillory is not her father. His wife is not her mother. But sometimes, when she looks at them, she wonders— 

It doesn’t matter. It was a fair deal, whatever they asked for in exchange for their child. Whatever her own parents saw fit to trade her for, she’s pleased they did, because it let her be here. It let her be this, strong and proud and serving her queen, instead of stumbling and weak, like the humans. 

The king’s wife tries to link her arm with Fray’s. Fray has to untangle herself once, twice, three times, before she finally _stops_ trying. 

“This will be so much fun,” she sighs, unbothered. “You wouldn’t _believe_ the stories I’ve heard.” She steps close, reaches out, and before Fray can stop her again, the tips of her fingers brush soft and warm against her face. “There’s so much out there to see, my love.” 

She doesn’t linger. She smiles, eyes soft, and then she pulls away again, curtsying when the boy Todd holds the door open for her. 

Frail human, Fray thinks, and follows her out.


	5. natalies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for Inktober prompt #9, "swing".

“Dormer,” Margo answers, immediately. 

Quentin snorts, and she smacks his shin, the closest part of him she can reach with him sprawled out upside-down on the couch like that. “Whatever,” he says. “I don’t even know why I asked. You’ve got such a type, you know that?” 

“Oh, please. Like you’re not just answering Portman for the nostalgia jerk-it factor.” 

He flushes red, indignant, and then launches into some spiel about the prequels and casting and long-term consequences for the lore. He talks a lot, when he’s fucked up. He talks a lot when he’s sober, too, but not like this— not without the self-conscious stopper wedged halfway down his throat. Substances help draw it out of him: drugs, booze, whatever. 

And _boy,_ does he _talk._

“—which, like, look, I’m not made of fucking stone. I like the podracing sections as much as the next person. They’re fun, or whatever. But there’s got to be a point where the, um, the _integrity_ of the work gets compromised, like, irreparably, you know? So like, not even Natalie Portman or Ewan McGregor or, you know, podracing could salvage—” 

“Are you saying,” Margo asks the ceiling, sprawled out lengthwise in the rest of the couch’s open space, “that you’d fuck a podracer, Coldwater?” 

He starts and sputters, “ _Christ,_ Margo,” and she _really_ wants to hear him ramble his way out of this one, except then the door to the Cottage clatters open, and she doesn’t give a shit anymore. 

“Well,” Eliot says behind them, breathing in deep. “Seems like you kids got started without me.” 

Margo throws both arms back over her head, across the armrest. Quentin says, “Hi, Eliot,” at the same time she barks, “Shut up and come cuddle me, dickwad.” 

“Jesus, fine.” He’s laughing. She can feel it when he presses a quick kiss against her knuckles. “Keep it in your pants.” 

He comes around the side of the couch, and pulls her legs up into his lap so that he can sit between them. He went with a dark palette today; his clothes are still warm from all the sun they soaked up outside, and Margo wriggles in against his side to make the most of it. 

“So,” he says, curling one hand over her knee. “What are we talking about?” 

“Girls,” she answers dreamily. He hums, pleased and disinterested— and then she tucks her nose against his cheek, smiles wicked into his skin, and whispers, “ _boys._ ” 

Q’s too fucked up to notice his own goddamn teeth right now, but _Margo_ knows. She feels the tension ripple through Eliot like a wave, catching and releasing. She flutters her eyelashes when he twists to look down at her, and relishes the way his eyes have lit up like a bonfire. 

“Margo’s been grilling me,” Quentin says, even though she absolutely fucking hasn’t. He’s hanging so low off the couch now that his hair is pooling in little twists on the carpet. “And it’s crazy, ‘cause, like, we haven’t agreed on _anything,_ this whole time.” 

“Fuck you,” she shoots back. “Don’t you dare suggest I wouldn’t fuck McGregor, you taint.” 

“Sorry,” Eliot says, like he just woke up, “ _what’s_ happening?” 

She trails her fingers down the side of his face. “Oh, baby,” she coos. "You know these doors swing both ways.” She grins, and nips at the air between them. “ _Hard._ " 

Q burps into the back of his hand. He smacks the other against his belly, and Margo watches Eliot wrinkle his nose, disgusted and endeared and baffled about it. 

He's so fucking stupid. She loves him so much. 

"—because it's, like," Quentin is saying, "I mean, it's reductive, right? Because you're implying there's a binary when actually it's more like, uh," he waves his hands around, "the doors swing in all directions and don't actually give a shit where they're headed at any given point in time, which makes them pretty shitty doors if you think about it, so—" 

"Whatever, Queer Theory," Margo says over him. "Tell Eliot your dumb and wrong opinion about Channing Tatum." 

"Oh my _god,_ Margo." And he's off. She sinks into Eliot's side and stretches her legs out to tuck her toes where it’s warm under Quentin's ass. "Literally no one is questioning the validity of, like, objective attractiveness, okay? I'm just _saying_ —" 

He talks, and talks, and talks, and Margo basks in her job well done.


	6. windrow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for Inktober prompt #11, "snow".
> 
> Content warning for an examination of day-to-day depression and a brief reference to passive suicidal ideation.

(It settles like snowflakes in his hair. 

It’s not, like— a huge _thing._ It’s not a blizzard. It’s not icicles snapping off of gutters, or sheets of heavy ice sliding off a glacier, or, like, Ice Road Truckers, or whatever. Even if it’s sometimes like that eventually, it’s never like that at the beginning. 

It’s just… It starts, soft and cold and gentle, and he doesn’t always notice right away.) 

“It’s good,” he tells Eliot, about breakfast. It’s different, he knows that, but mostly only because Eliot told him so, before he took a bite. Different from what, he doesn't know. It tastes cheesy and eggy, plus some other flavors Quentin recognizes but can’t name. It’s good. Eliot’s a good cook. It’s good. 

Eliot is frowning at him. 

“Sorry,” Quentin says, automatic. “I know that’s not, like… helpful, or whatever. I just, I mean.” He rubs at his forehead. He’s not annoyed, just tired. He slept like shit. “I don’t know what else you want me to say, El.” 

“Do you like the gruyère better?” Eliot asks him, pointed, and Quentin gets the sensation that maybe he asked that already, or suggested it, or something, and Quentin just didn’t notice. 

He looks down at his plate. The cheese is different, okay. Does he like it better? 

“I- I don’t know,” he says. 

Eliot sighs, and, ah, fuck, he’s pissed him off. “I’m not _grading_ you, Coldwater. I’m just asking.” 

It’s a simple fucking question, right? Like, thumbs up or thumbs down on today’s cheese compared to yesterday’s cheese. Eliot probably didn’t expect to have to grill him for an answer. It’s just— it’s early and he’s, like, the prototypical exhausted grad student, and even just this is a lot at eight in the morning. He’s not sure he even remembers what yesterday’s cheese was. 

“Look, I— I can’t do this right now,” he says, pushing the rest of the plate back across the counter. “I’m gonna be late.” 

It’s his own fault, not Eliot’s. He got out of bed late. He’s tired. 

He’s halfway to the door before he remembers to say, “Thanks. Uh, for breakfast.” 

(And it’s like, he’s not stupid. He’s been doing this a long time. But sometimes, it’s just… it’s slow. It snows for days, for weeks, for months, before it’s enough for him to notice. Sometimes there are nice days, better days, where it melts back a little. But it still sticks to him, it sticks to itself, and it— piles.) 

He goes to class. They’re supposed to be doing partner work today, which he doesn’t remember until he gets there. He’s late, and Alice is sitting by herself. 

He trips on the corner of the door on his way in. “Sorry,” he says breathlessly, hurling himself into the seat. “Shit, I’m sorry.” 

“It’s fine,” she answers, like it’s not. “Let’s just get started.” 

She’s started already, kind of. She’s taken rows of neat notes on the handout; he looks at it, and wonders how she manages to keep her lines so straight on unlined paper. She turns it toward him so that he can see the diagram she’s drawn. 

He realizes halfway through her third sentence that she’s explaining something to him. 

“Uh.” Her eyes flick up to him, and it makes something near his stomach shrivel up. “Sorry, I’m having… kind of a slow morning.” They narrow, and he swallows. “Can you— what are we trying to do, again?” 

She explains it again, her voice tighter than before. He watches her face, focuses on her voice. He hears her say, “It’s buried under a lot of extraneous information, but the first part of the question just wants us to address balance differences between my humors and yours. In a modern, practical sense, all that means is—” and it’s basic, he’s heard this before, he knows he knows this. 

But he’s still— he just— 

“Wait,” he says. He squints harder at her diagram. “Sorry, can we back up a second?” 

The line of her mouth goes pinched and flat. Fuck. She’s wasting so much of her time with this. With him. “Quentin.” 

“Sorry, I’m— Sorry, okay? I’m listening, can you just… can you go through it one more time?” 

(Sometimes it almost feels comfortable. Like how igloos are warmer on the inside, or… like how people dying of hypothermia start to feel like they’re overheating, near the end. Maybe that’s a better comparison. The weight of it piles up, and up, and up, until it’s too heavy to move, and then it’s a relief, because if he can’t move maybe he can finally— rest.) 

He goes back to the Cottage, after class. He crawls back into his bed for a nap, because he barely slept the night before and because it was an impressively shitty morning, even for him. 

He sleeps through his first afternoon class. When he wakes up, he lies there under the covers until it’s time to leave for his second afternoon class, and then he doesn’t do that, either. 

He should, and he tries to. He thinks about it: sitting up and finding his book and grabbing his bag and going downstairs and opening the door and going outside, but he doesn’t do any of that. He just lies under the covers, feeling buried and frozen. It’s sort of like being piled under snow, he thinks, and— 

Oh. 

Right. 

Yeah.

And it starts, again.


	7. blacks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for Inktober prompt #13, "ash".
> 
> Content warning for coping with the depression of a loved one.

She goes out on the patio to smoke when it finally leaves. It could be gone five seconds or five days, and it's an opportunity she really, really can't waste, today. 

Fifteen minutes later, Q follows her out. He’s still jerky, still agitated. She doesn’t know what he does with the brief reprieves of time he gets for himself, but she tries not to interrupt them, and tries not to be too relieved when he doesn’t always spend all of them alone. 

(It barely looked at her at all today. It had prowled around him, talking at him in a low voice, hands reaching and patting and grabbing, thoughtless, like a little kid with a pet cat. It doesn’t sound like Eliot, or move like Eliot, but sometimes, when it wraps one of Eliot’s hands around the back of his neck— sometimes he looks up at it, and she could swear—) 

He drops into the chair beside her, and swings his arm out to smack her elbow with the back of his open hand. Demanding, without asking. 

“Thought you quit,” she says gently, tipping the pack toward him. 

“Yeah,” he answers, drawn out, and it has a quality that reminds her of— 

(She tries not to think about it.) 

“Turns out nobody bothered to give Brian the memo,” he goes on, fishing in his jacket pocket for his lighter. (The pyromancy spell isn’t worth the ambient, anymore.) It clicks in his hands: once, twice, three times. “So I figured, uh,” he gets the light and tips his head back, eyes closing, breathing in deep, “you know. Fuck it.” 

“Fuck it,” she agrees, and manages to smile when he glances at her, wry. 

She gets up from her patio chair and sits on the arm of his; it’s wide enough to support her butt well enough, and it lets them have warm hip-to-shoulder contact. He exhales, quick and sharp, not really a sigh, and then he goes still, not really relaxed. 

They sit there long enough to watch the sun go most of the way down. 

“I know you don’t like it when I say it,” she tells him softly, and he ashes his cigarette with a quick flick of his wrist, “but I’m worried about you.” 

She's expecting something. Or— hoping, maybe. Hoping that he'll argue with her, or snark at her, or lay it all out for her, or… something. 

“Yeah,” he says instead, placid and even in a way that makes her gut twist up with old tendrils of fear, “I know.” 

She forces herself into two deep, even breaths. “We’re probably going to argue about it again eventually,” she says, and he’s not even looking at her but he still turns his face away, muscles in his jaw jumping, “but I don’t wanna do that right now. Okay? I’m not— we don’t need to talk about it.” It used to be second nature, doing this for him. She’d tell herself she’s not sure when she got so out of practice, except she knows exactly when. “I just hope you know that I’m here. For you. Whatever that looks like.” 

He sighs. Her throat feels thick. “I know, Jules.” 

“Do you?” 

It gets him to look at her, at least. He’s familiar in all the worst ways: too-sharp cheekbones and dark circles and messy stubble. She knows— better than anyone, maybe— that there’s a point of no return. There’s a place where she can’t reach him anymore, that he has to climb up out of himself. 

He looks her in the eye, and she feels like she’s staring down the barrel of it. 

“I missed out on a lot,” she tells him, and it rasps in her throat, caught up in smoke and emotion. “I know that. And you don’t owe me an explanation. But if you do ever want to tell me, about— about any of it, I’ll listen. Okay?” She sniffs, and presses her cheek down against his hair, before it gets any worse. “I’m here, Q.” 

He’s quiet, for what feels like a long time. The last of the light is getting swallowed up by the horizon. His arm comes up around her in an awkward, backwards, clinging half-hug. 

“I know, Jules,” he says again, thin and trembling and exhausted. “I know.”


	8. encore 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for Inktober prompt #16, "wild".

“How do you feel?” Alice asks him, when he wakes up. 

It’s sort of weird. Her skin is all blotchy, and her hair is limp, and she keeps tucking her hands into the folded hem of her sweater, like she’s cold. Except he's comfortable, even in just his t-shirt; it’s summer and it’s Fillory, so the seasons are all pretty mild at worst. 

It’s _Fillory,_ he reminds himself. He doesn’t know how the fuck he managed to forget, even for a couple of seconds. He digs his fingers into the damp, marshy earth beside him, and marvels: Fillory, in the palm of his hand. 

“Q?” Alice says again, and her voice is raspy and strange now. Thick, like she’s going to cry. 

He doesn’t get why she’s so worked up about it, but she asked, so, okay. Fine. How does he feel? 

Something flutters at the back of his mind, snapping loud but ragged, like the torn edge of a banner, caught in the wind. He thinks— maybe? Maybe he was— afraid, before. Before this, whatever that was. He doesn’t remember it precisely. It’s like a shadow, or an afterimage: the abstract impression of being afraid, instead of the sense memory of it. He doesn’t know what he would have had to be afraid _of,_ anyway. He rubs his palm against his chest, over his heart, and Alice’s face goes white and drawn, watching him. 

Maybe he'll remember eventually. Maybe he won't. He decides not to worry about it. 

He’s not afraid now, at least. No way; _now,_ he feels _clear._ Light. Open, in his head and his chest and all over, in a way he barely remembers feeling ever, in his entire life. It’s… incredible, honestly. He feels powerful. He feels _free._

He smiles at her. She swallows hard, throat bobbing, but then she smiles back, tiny and— wavering, which isn’t a word he’s ever really associated with her before. It’s sort of weird. 

He decides not to worry about it. 

Genuinely, truly, and honestly, he answers, “I feel _fantastic._ ” 


	9. repurpose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for Inktober prompt #17, "ornament".

“Green,” Quentin says, again. 

“If it turns out the answer was ‘the spirit of Christmas’ all along,” Eliot says thoughtfully, slotting yet another green tile into F9, “I might actually, completely lose my shit.” 

It’s Q’s pattern, so he’s the one up in the chair today, wrapped in a quilt and with their workbook flopped open in his lap. He leans up just enough to poke Eliot between the shoulderblades with the stick they use for orchestrating, the one that Eliot picked up on a whim years ago, and that Q has since shaped and smoothed into something actually useful. 

“Shut up,” he says, all warmth. “It’s fun.” And then he says _again,_ like Eliot even needs the guidance at this point: “Green.” 

Christmas is a new thing. It’s Q’s new thing. And Quentin isn’t, like, a _Christmas person,_ one of those people who prostrate themselves beneath red and green coffee cups and the one Mariah Carey song they know; he’d never even mentioned it before, in all the years they’ve already been here. But he mentioned it this year. Picked a day out and everything. 

The difference, obviously, is that Teddy is in the picture now. 

(“I just,” he’d mumbled into Eliot’s chest when he first floated the idea, late at night and unable to sleep, “I keep thinking about how when I was a kid, my dad—” 

And Eliot doesn’t _get it,_ but… he gets it. So: Christmas.) 

They leave the last tile— a bright yellow one that goes right at the center of the star atop Q’s angular, geometric Christmas tree— for Teddy. He comes barreling out of the house on wobbly, excitable legs, Arielle hot on his heels, and Eliot has to catch him around the middle before he face plants right onto the puzzle. 

“ _No,_ ” he wails when Eliot tries to hand him the tile, months-deep already into his whirlwind toddler romance with the N-O word. “I wanna do it!” 

He’s incandescently proud of himself when he’s able to squat down on his own and pick it up with both hands, his grin wide and toothy, so... really, Eliot’s the stupid one here. 

“Alright,” Q coaches gently, one arm already wound around Arielle's waist like a weird, renaissance-y Christmas card. “Remember, just be careful— there you go.” 

The tile slots in. Teddy pats around the edges of it like, presumably, he’s seen them do before, his little face screwed up in concentration. 

Nothing happens, thank god. 

Teddy doesn’t understand enough about the Mosaic to be disappointed by it. It’s only done what, from his perspective, it’s always done: nothing. So he tips his head back to look at them with that same bright, shining grin, and— honestly, Eliot barely remembers the last time he was disappointed by the Mosaic, either. 

He flops dramatically back onto the tiles anyway, because Teddy still finds that shriek-laughingly hilarious, for some reason. He flops, too, fully starfished, one little boot making full-force contact with the side of Eliot's head. 

“We’ll get a tree like this one today,” Q says, ever the voice of forward momentum. “Someone has to put the star on top. Who do you think it should be, Ted?” 

Teddy shoots back up to attention. “Me! I’ll do it!” 

His hair is sticking up all over in the back. Eliot sits up enough to smooth it down for him. “You?” He lifts his chin and wrinkles his nose. Teddy scrunches his whole face back at him. “But you’re so short. How will you even reach?” 

“I’m not!” He goes up on his tiptoes, arms stretched high over his head. “I can do it!” 

Eliot leans back on one arm, rubs his chin, draws his thoughtful hum out, the whole nine yards. Teddy doesn’t waver for a second, hangs on to his determined eye contact, mouth set and fingers wiggling. In his periphery, Eliot can see Q rolling his eyes and Arielle hiding her smile into his temple. 

Eliot snaps his fingers. “Ah. I see. How about—” and then he lunges forward to scoop Teddy up by the armpits. 

Teddy shrieks again, this time right up against Eliot's ear. Which, whatever, he wasn't planning on winning any awards in long-distance listening any time soon. Teddy's just the right size now for Eliot to plop him on his shoulders, big enough and aware enough to keep himself steady without Eliot having to readjust his center of gravity every two seconds— which means he'll be way _too_ big by this time next year, probably. 

Demonstrably so, he twists his hands into Eliot's hair like the goddamn world is ending. 

“See?” he crows, all his excitement kicking out through his legs. “I can do it! Daddy, I can do it!” 

Q is smiling, sparkling like the whole fucking sky opened up and dumped every star in existence straight into the creases of his dimples. “You sure can, buddy.” 

“Fine,” Eliot allows, catching Teddy's tiny, destructive feet in both hands, “but I get to hide the pickle.” 

Arielle, who only hears the double-entendre, snorts indelicately into her hand. Teddy, who only hears the ridiculous combination of sounds that make up the word _pickle,_ cracks up all over again. 

Quentin, in his gold-star, stern-Dad-voice, says, “Eliot.” 

“It’s only fair,” Eliot answers. “I did the legwork to get one, and, yes, it was _exactly_ as tedious and impossible as it sounds. I deserve it.” 

“What?” Arielle laughs, which he expects. 

“What?” Quentin says at the same time, completely serious, which he doesn't. 

“The ornament?” He’s getting the same blank, confused look, so he can’t help himself when he says, “Wait, what did _you_ think I meant?” 

“ _Eliot,_ ” Q says again, decidedly less stern this time. 

The thing with the pickle ornament is, it turns out, not as ubiquitous as Eliot assumed it was. He ends up having to explain it, which is— fine. Teddy’s excited, and Arielle thinks it’s cute, so they’ll do it. Simple. It should be validating, because it really _was_ a pain in the ass, trying to find-slash-construct an ornament that would work. 

On the other hand, he also kind of wishes he hadn’t bothered. 

“We never did anything like that when I was a kid,” Quentin says, once Teddy has scurried back inside. It’s his affected-casual voice, the one he uses when he’s trying to make a point but doesn’t want to seem like he is. 

“It’s really not that complicated, Q,” Eliot tells him. “But if you need help, you know I’m always happy to demonstrate.” 

A wry, slanted little smile blooms across his face. “No, jackass.” And then it curls back in on itself again, quick as it came. He steps close, bumps their shoulders, tangles their arms, their elbows, their fingers. “I just, um. I’m pretty sure that makes it _your_ tradition, El.” 

Oh. 

Eliot thinks it’s a weird way to frame it. _Tradition_ is what Quentin is doing: letting the legacy of his family live on while his family isn’t here to participate. Eliot just… has a few semi-okay memories of tearing up a Christmas tree with his very Midwestern number of little cousins, and assumed everyone else did, too. 

He says, “I guess.” 

Q is peering up at him, searching his face. “I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about that,” he says, when Eliot doesn’t say anything else. “If it’s... weird, or bad, then—” 

“Pretty sure that ship has sailed, Q. I can tell you from experience that if that child doesn’t find a pickle by this time tomorrow, we’ll have goddamn armageddon on our hands.” 

“Sure, but...” 

But... what? 

The pickle ornament he found isn't really a pickle. It's a western marshlands long radish. They grow for months in muck and swamp slime, and they’re an absolute bitch to cook right; simmer them too hot, or for too long, and they get awfully, nastily bitter, bad enough to spoil a whole stew. 

Teddy’s the only one in the family who likes them, because Teddy’s only ever eaten them after Eliot finally got the recipe right. 

“It’s okay,” he decides, right that second. He tugs Q against him, tucks his worried, furrowed brow under his chin. “It really is. It’s— good. I think.” 

“You think,” Quentin echoes, softly amused, but all his tense muscles go looser, just a bit. Just enough. 

“Almost certain,” Eliot tells him. “Like, at least sixty percent. Minimum.” He closes his eyes, touches his lips just to the edge of Q’s hairline, and manages, softly, “Promise.” 

He’s been doing this a long time. He’s spent years, decades, whatever, just— taking all the broken, sharp-edged pieces that came tumbling out of Whiteland back in the summer of 2010, and turning them into something new. Something different. Something _his._

His stupid radish ornament. His queer little family. His shrieking, beaming son. His backwards, bizarre, beautiful mess of a life. 

As far as traditions go, Eliot thinks he could do worse.


	10. marshmallow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for Inktober prompt #22, "ghost".

“Can I ask you a question?” 

Penny spreads his hands. “It’s why we’re here, man.” 

Coldwater’s a lot of things, but stupid’s never really been one of them. He levels Penny with a stony, exasperated look— the effect’s kind of marred by how his eyes are still red from crying, sure, but the message gets across. 

“Alright,” Penny says, placating. “It’s at least, like, a third of why we’re here.” 

It’s an opening. Coldwater seems to get that, even if he doesn’t take it right away. He looks everywhere else in the room— the coffee table, the desk, the ceiling— and picks through his own thoughts. 

“Is this…” He stops, his mouth flattening out. Thinks about it some more. “Is this better?” 

“Better than…?” 

“I don’t know. Better than when you were alive, I guess.” He looks down at his hands. “I was going to ask, ‘Is this what you wanted?’ but. I think even I know the answer to that.” 

No. _No_ is the answer to that, pretty unequivocally. Penny can _feel_ that conviction still, even if the memory of it seems far away, a lot of the time. 

But Coldwater keeps talking. “It’s just, you’re so—” He looks at Penny’s face, but Penny doesn’t get the sense that he’s looking at _him._ “I’m not sure how to explain it. Calm? Less angry, for sure. Like you’re… at peace?” He cringes, apparently at himself. “Is that the right way to put it?” 

Penny knows what’s next in his playbook. It’s to turn the conversation back around, to ask if that’s what Coldwater’s looking for, in his afterlife— peace. To encourage him to ease his white-knuckled grip on the mortal plane. To help him let go. Move on. 

But Coldwater is still _talking._ “And so, I’ve got this crazy, like, cognitive-dissonance. I remember the person you were back when I knew you, before— before. And, I guess, I knew _a_ you, a different you, someone who wasn’t… who fit differently, in our lives. And—” 

_Jesus christ,_ Penny thinks suddenly, maybe good-naturedly, but it's still a brighter, more piercing thought than he’s had in a long, long while, _get to the fucking point._

“And now there’s, you know, _you._ ” Coldwater waves one hand at him, like he doesn’t know what to do about him. “And it’s just… weird. For me. So I can’t help wondering, like…” He looks at Penny properly, finally. His throat bobs. He breathes slow. “Is it better? Now? Would you rather have this, the- the peace, than…” 

He doesn’t finish. He doesn’t need to; Penny knows what he means. He knows what he should say, to a question like that. 

It all falls away— the fear, the pain, the motivation. What you think matters up there doesn’t translate down here, when it’s just you and yourself and eternity. 

Is it better? 

Coldwater seems to be getting something out of his non-answer, anyway. He wrings his hands for a bit, and then he reaches again for the mug of hot chocolate on the table. 

“You know what,” Penny says, clapping once, too loud. Loud enough to startle Coldwater’s hands away from the handle. “Let’s talk about that.” 

“About…” His face kinda folds in on itself, like he thinks something is funny but isn’t sure if he’s allowed. “About you?” 

“About you,” Penny says patiently, and— shit. Yeah. Who’da thunk, huh? “And how even though you got sent here for closure,” he folds his hands together tight, until his knuckles ache, “you’re still sitting here thinking about wanting to be alive.” 

Coldwater’s eyes go big and round and dewy. 

Maybe it’s about time Penny remembered something about that, too.


	11. riffle stacking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for Inktober prompt #23, "ancient".

He likes the sounds the cards make, when they’re jumping between Quentin’s hands. _Chk-a-chk-a-chk-a-chk,_ one way, and _chk-a-chk-a-chk-a-chk,_ back again. It’s only a sound, but it feels like a feeling, bouncing around in his head. It’s a new game. It’s so interesting, and he’s so excited to play with Quentin, except then he gets shot, and everything gets all mixed up. 

Oh well. All it takes is more time, and he’s done that before. Long, long time, stretching time, rolling time, all the way back to— to— 

He doesn’t remember. 

Anyway, this is so short, compared to that. He thinks about sounds that feel like feelings, thinks of the time it takes to get to Earth like _blip,_ the time to find the stupid human with his stupid bullet like _bloop,_ and the time to find Quentin on the corner with all the other people like _thwip-thwip-thwip._

(Except _Brian_ doesn’t know how to do it right. He’s so much more annoying than Quentin, with his big, scared eyes and fluttering hands and the way a little blood beneath his nose makes him throw up into a bush, the first time. He says, “Seriously, I- I barely even know how to shuffle, like, the crappy basic way, I don’t think—” but it’s too boring to listen to, so he shoves the little deck of cards between Brian’s hands anyway. 

The glamour doesn’t like that. A big lamp on the corner of the street pops and shatters, and all the cards scatter on the sidewalk when Brian jumps away from the sound.) 

It takes so much time for Quentin to remember. It’s less than the long, long time, but it _feels_ like more, like how the sound of the cards _feels_ like it’s bouncing around in his head, even though it isn’t. 

Waiting is so boring. 

But Quentin does remember, eventually. Brian stops being Brian and starts being Quentin again, and he ends up not killing any of Quentin’s friends after all, but that’s okay, too. This way Quentin isn’t too sad, and he doesn’t have to wait any more _thwips_ of time before he can sit up next to him on the couch and give him the little deck of cards again. 

“Show me a trick,” he says. 

And Quentin won’t look at his face, but he does look down at his own hands, and that’s good, he thinks, because it means he’s focusing, probably. Brian complained, and yelled, and cried, but Quentin doesn’t. Quentin nods, and he listens, because they are friends. 

The cards jump between his hands, _chk-a-chk-a-chk-a-chk._


	12. made to order

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for Inktober prompt #25, "tasty".

“Okay,” Quentin says, “but what about, like, a beer cocktail?” 

The worst part is, he says it like he thinks he’s being _clever._ Like they’re playing chess, and he’s been tracking this hole in Eliot’s strategy since the beginning of the game. Like he’s just handed himself checkmate on an awful, home-brewed platter. 

Joke’s on him: Eliot doesn’t fucking play chess. 

He flicks his hand at the door without looking up, and answers: “Leave.” 

“No,” Q says, laughing. “I wanna hear the actual objection. Like, what logic could you possibly have to disqualify them? It’s the exact same thing, just with a different kind of alcohol.” 

“My _logic_ is that there are more satisfying ways to debase myself, Q.” 

It doesn’t even get the rise he’s angling for; Quentin is so laser-focused on this fucking _beer_ crusade that all Eliot gets for his trouble is a briefly wrinkled nose. Disappointing, in absolutely every single way. 

“I had one a while back that was pretty good,” Q says, rocking thoughtfully on his barstool. “I don’t remember what it was called, but it had, um, some kind of pale beer and— I think, cider?” 

Eliot stoops to pick through the minifridge. “You’re talking about a snakebite,” he says. 

“Yeah! Yeah, that’s it.” 

A simple lager for the base, then; he’s never seen Q shy away from a stout, but it’s also never been his first choice, either. There’s a decent Märzen in here that could do the job, with the right kind of cider to balance it. Something with body and warmth, more sweet than dry. 

“Mmhm.” He hooks two bottles between his fingers and kicks the minifridge closed again. “And what year of Renfaire was that?” 

Quentin goes delightfully red, all the way down to his neck, and that tells him all he needs to know, really. “That’s not— I mean—” He blinks rapidly when Eliot starts popping the caps off, like his brain is resetting. “Wait, are you actually making one?” 

“You don’t want one?” Eliot returns, plucking a pint glass from the rack. 

“I mean,” Q is still looking at him like that, eyes big and baffled, and Eliot busies himself with artfully frosting the glass instead of looking back, “no, yeah, I definitely do.” 

Eliot sets the glass down on the bar, and pours the Märzen first. “Okay then.” 

He’s painstaking with his layers: cider next, a smooth gradient, and then the crème de cassis to finish. It’s not really a crucial ingredient, but it adds a nice shock of dark color and tartness that appeases both Eliot’s aesthetic sensibilities and his palate at the same time. Quentin will like the complexity it gives the flavor, even if he doesn’t think he will. 

“There,” he says, twisting the glass out. “Your _beertail,_ you plebeian.” 

He’s right: Quentin looks wary at first, studying the rim of the glass, but he doesn’t hesitate or complain. He takes a sip, and his eyes go big and delighted, this time. 

“Holy _shit,_ ” he marvels, and the little frisson of satisfaction that zips down Eliot’s spine is just unnecessary, honestly. “This is really good, El.” 

Eliot flips his hand towel over his shoulder. “I know,” he says mildly, sweeping the half-empty bottles off the bar. “Absolutely never ask me to do it again.” 

But Q only grins at him, and guzzles the rest of the drink down, and— well. 

Maybe sometimes he won’t need to ask.


End file.
